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Giant Mtn. 8-3-11

Any discussions of the Adirondack Mountains.
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Jon
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:43 pm
Location: Bangor, PA

Giant Mtn. 8-3-11

Unread post by Jon »

First of the 46ers. if I go at the rate of 1 per year I'll be there in 45 years >.<

Pic's link is at the bottom, you can scroll down and skip my summary if pics are more your thing.

Got up at 5:30 and left my aunt and uncles cabin in Lake George early. I drove up 87 and got to the parking lot before the chapel pond. It is a popular hike but I was the 1st to arrive at 6:45, so I got a good spot right under the sign.

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Neways This climb is fantastic. 3 miles up and 3000' elv. gain. I had never climbed any ADK Mountain proper (drove up whiteface...prospect mtn, and climbed buck mtn on LG) . It should be noted, that just like the first time you climb a catskill mtn it's readily apparent what makes them different than dinky NJ Mtns, once you climb Giant Mtn....The view is constant for about 70% of the trail. Once you get up past the switchback and just start hiking on open rock face you can stop and turn around and soak in the view for as long as you want before starting up again.

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About 80% of the way up and you see the summit for the first time (unless you spied it from the Northway on the way up) By this time it reminded me of seeing the summit of Balsam Cap from the goat trail up Friday. Just some large pines way off and you say
"there's no way I'm hiking there...
That can't be the summit..
that's gotta be the next mtn, and I just can't see the summit yet"
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You get into the designated alpine zone, and I guess you're not supposed to touch anything. needless to say i didn't hang my hammock from any of these fragile alpine trees.
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Another trail breaks off to go to another 46er Rocky Peak Ridge. I skipped this as I was going solo and had only left instructions with my wife that I was climbing Giant. I could have made it cause I' wasn't that tired, but I didn't want to diverge from my planned outing.
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After the alpine zone it's still a few hundred feed gain to the summit 4627ft.

I got up there so early, that I was in the middle of a cloud. after a while it burnt off but the rest of ADK were still in the cloud. You get views of almost every eastern high peak from here. Marcy, Algonquin, Whiteface, Gothic, Dix, etc etc....

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The scale is grand, it reminded me of seeing yosemite Valley for the first time. You just can't believe how far away and how high and how many of everything there is. I stayed at the summit for over an hour and hurried back down to make it to the car to the cabin to take a dip in Lake George.



NJOY

Pics- https://picasaweb.google.com/stelling.jon/GiantMountain

**in the excitement of this I hadn't realized that my camera settings were off from the night before taking pictures in the dimly lit cabin I had the meter a tad over by default so with these outdoor shots they're mostly overexposed.
Last edited by Jon on Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:31 pm, edited 5 times in total.
mtnclimber
Posts: 496
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:46 pm

Re: Giant Mtn. 8-3-11

Unread post by mtnclimber »

I have look at Giant a number of times. But, it also has some giant vertical to get to the summit. Nice trail report. Pictures looked great.

You could see the hotel in the valley. Just like you can from Noonmark Mtn. Never knew about that pond up there too. Maybe one of these days I will have to try to hike this mtn. Thanks for the pics.
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Jon
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:43 pm
Location: Bangor, PA

Re: Giant Mtn. 8-3-11

Unread post by Jon »

new and improved trail report with pictures! Thanks for the tips mike =)
TrunksWD
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:38 pm

Re: Giant Mtn. 8-3-11

Unread post by TrunksWD »

Great report. I'm going up to the Adirondacks with a couple of friends this weekend. We are possibly looking at hiking Giant along with Rocky Peak Ridge. It will be my second and third of the 46ers. I hiked Big Slide in April.
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